Documents: Federal agents engaged in sex acts with trafficking victims
Howard Center For Investigative Journalism
PHOENIX — The women were forced to live and work in filth and near darkness, the federal agent said, surviving on only the tips they received from performing massages and sexual favors.
Lon Weigand, deputy special agent in charge of Homeland Security Investigations in Arizona, described them as “Asian females†who may be sex-trafficking victims. He praised the joint operation between federal agents and local police in western Arizona that led to their rescue and credited “investigative techniques†with helping to crack a “transnational criminal organization.â€
What Weigand didnâ€t say at that September 2018 news conference — although HSI documents show some supervisors knew — was that federal undercover agents repeatedly paid for and engaged in sex acts with suspected victims.
That fact, coupled with HSIâ€s refusal to let its agents testify, caused the collapse of a case that was more than three years in the making. All felony charges against the alleged ringleaders were dropped. And sex-trafficking experts said the women were likely re-traumatized.
Defense attorneys were outraged when they learned of the agents†actions.
“Thatâ€s our tax money,†said attorney Josephine Hallam, whose grandfather was former U.S. Supreme Court Justice Hugo Black. “Shouldnâ€t they be at the border, or doing something with terrorists rather than getting sex acts?â€
AUTHORIZED ACTIVITY
HSI is the largest investigative unit in the Department of Homeland Security, which was created in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks. Some 7,000 HSI agents have wide-ranging authority to investigate a variety of cross-border crimes, such as sex- and human-trafficking. But for all its power and scope, HSI has received relatively little public attention, even though internal inspector-general reports have criticized it for lax accountability and oversight. HSI agents also have been involved in shootings of civilians around the country, an investigation by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism revealed in February.
“HSI is committed to placing the safety of potential victims at the forefront of every investigation,†said Yasmeen Pitts Oâ€
Keefe, a spokeswoman with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, HSIâ€
s parent agency. “Conduct by a limited number of HSI agents involved in the investigation was not consistent with HSI policy.â€
But HSIâ€
s own documents, statements by local police, and the federal governmentâ€
s response refute the idea this was a rogue action.
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